Sir! Keir! Starmer!

You've only got to see Boris Johnson's popularity going up in the last few weeks with Keir Starmer as likely leader to realise that it ain't all on Jeremy Corbyn's shoulders.

The electorate needs education in why Neolibralism doesn't works so well (they're getting it now actually) but they still think Boris is king. That is going to change.

Centrism is not the answer. Doesn't matter how many times Binners dredges up storytime or calls folk Communist.

My dog is called Kea

i before e except after K.

They had a policy that should have strongly appealed to literally half the voters.

They didn't; they thought they had a policy that appealed to all. Instead it was too woolly, too indecisive and muddled to be risked by anybody.

People like certainty. That wasn't on offer with Labour.

It was with BoJo, the certainty to be humped. But it worked.

They didn’t; they thought they had a policy that appealed to all. Instead it was too woolly, too indecisive and muddled to be risked by anybody.

People like certainty. That wasn’t on offer with Labour.

It was with BoJo, the certainty to be humped. But it worked.

I was talking about the lib dems 'remain' policy.

As you say the Lab "policy" was a joke: "Vote for us and we'll flip a coin".

Ah, misunderstood with the page turn.

Lib policy was clear, but that woman was unbearable.

Politics is the art of the possible.
Otto Eduard Leopold, Fürst (prince) von Bismarck, Graf (count) von Bismarck-Schönhausen, Herzog (duke) von Lauenburg

Better known as just Bismarck. What is in a title?

No Keir does not want or need to purge the party he needs to unite it. If you think back to Harold Wilson cabinets or indeed Tony Blaire cabinets they contained a cross-section of the party of various degrees of competence and political spectrum. Think Tony Benn (left wing) George Brown (drunk) John Prescott er could throw a punch.
One of the reasons Corbyn was hamstrung was because of the 2016 coup (Keir among them) who refused to serve so just occupied a position as an MP not really a Labour MP. Keir did return to serve Nandy did not.
This required promotion of a lot of other MPs of varying degrees of competence to the front bench/line who in most cases did their best but they did step up and they were not Blairites.
Personally if there was a purge they are the ones I would boot out but then there is a question over Keir so make an exception?
The party has never been an homogeneous unity but it is capable of working together and the art of leadership will be to get all the PLP to get off their arses and work for the party not themselves. Then all things may be possible.

The party has never been an homogeneous unity

It shouldn't be. There should be as many checks and balances within the party as without to stop any madness from going too far, particularly with a weak opposition.

Otherwise you end up with the Thatcher cabinet re imagined for the new century. It won't be any more palatable now.

They had a policy that should have strongly appealed to literally half the voters.

They had a policy?

It looked like a multiple choice question with a number of boxes you could tick depending on your interpretation

To their credit, Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy were both advocates of getting off the fence that Grandad had been increasingly inefectually sat on for 2 years and actually taking a stance one way or the other. One advocated leave, one remain. But at least they had positions.

The art of leadership is to manage these conflicting positions and make a decision. Both Starmer and Nandy were crystal clear as what they would have done if they were running the show. Either would have lost some voters, maybe even some MP's while gaining others. Who knows how it would have worked out? But either of them would have had the balls to call it!

Corbyn refused to make it because he was incpable of doing so due to being too weak and dithering, so ended up with a laughably farcical 'honest broker' position which appealed to absolutely nobody while ruthlessly exposing what a weak ditherer he was.

I'm optimistic that Starmer will display that type of leadership where theres been a yawning vacuum at the top of the party from a man completely devoid of the skills needed for the job and surrounded a cabal of idealogical incompetents. And I hope Nandy ends up in a senior position too as she's clearly incredibly capable.

My principal objection to Starmer is that he is as dull as ditchwater. I think he would be an effective leader in the managerial sense, but in terms of getting people enthused to vote for him, I'm not so sure. He will also need to develop an offer that appeals to the lost voters across the north, without which Labour has only permanent opposition.

Its difficult to see any form of electable party emerging from the smouldering wreckage of Corbynism. So complete has its job been of repelling voters, right the way across the board.

Whoever ends up leader they're going to have one hell of a job on their hands. We've had a (totally inexplicable, to me) messianic cult of (non-)personality at the top of the party and just look at the state of it! Look at what it delivered? A complete electoral implosion even through its previous 'heartlands'

A stage of manegerial competence, devoid of personality politics is exactly whats required after the idealogical suicide mission of the last 4 years. Call it dull as dishwater if you like. We've had the alternative. It was an absolute disater!

If the events of the last few months have shown anything, its that voters want somebody who looks like they know what they're doing. An actual leader.

Boris is failing miserably on this score, predictably enough, but instead of Labour being able to look strong in opposition, that doddering old imbecile has still been limping on, being as totally ineffectual as he's always been and looking as shifty and untrustworthy as ever.

This charade should have been done and dusted months ago.

A stage of manegerial competence, devoid of personality politics is exactly whats required after the idealogical suicide mission of the last 4 years. Call it dull as dishwater if you like. We’ve had the alternative. It was an absolute disater!

Well no, not really. Unless Starmer is able to broaden his appeal then Labour will be no further forward. And it's a complete failure of your imagination to suppose that the only two options are "dull but competent and successful" vs "cult of personality and failure". For one thing, your hero Blair owed much of his electoral success to personality politics.

For one thing, your hero Blair owed much of his electoral success to personality politics.

Another fallacy the left likes to pedal in its re-writing of history, as its so uncomfortable with the truth

Blairs principle quality when he was elected was an image of trustworthy, pragmatic competence which appealed to large swathes of the electorate of differing political persuassions. The messiah complex came further down the line after years in power and successive comfortable election victories

Another fallacy the left likes to pedal in its re-writing of history, as its so uncomfortable with the truth

Blairs principle quality when he was elected was a pragmatic sense of competence which appealed to large swathes of the electorate of differing political persuassions. The messiah complex came further down the line after years in power and successive comfortable election victories

I suspect you've convinced yourself that Blair was elected on the basis of competence. This is arrant nonsense: the PR machine was in full swing from the very beginning, with Blair closely aligning himself with cool Britannia and all that bollocks. This isn't a criticism of him - as I say, you can't win without kerbside appeal, and Blair was very good at it. I'm not convinced that the same is true of Starmer - I hope I'm wrong.

Lets hope so.

We're now in an new era where the true colours of the noisy Boris/Trump populists is being ruthlessly exposed (seen anything of the man-frog recently?). Dull as dishwater/quiet, drama-free competence* is going to look increasingly appealling in this new world

* delete as to your political persuassion

There is one heck of a lot of rewriting of history going on here on this thread. One issue that has not been raised is all the entryists on the right who arrived under Blair - those without a socialist bone in their body who saw labour as a path to power an riches and its mainly these folk who wrecked Corbyns leadership by creating myths about him and feeding them to the right wing press - they are responsible for having a tory government!

I thin k very strongly that Starmer assuming he wins does need a damn good clear out of idiots - but the are not exclusively on the left. Get as far away from the front bench anyone who supported brexit. Utter fools and they hamstrung any chance of sensible policy on brexit. Get rid of all the peoples liberation front of Judea types, get rid of all those who used the labour party to enrich themselves.

There is also some absurd rewriting of history of the lib dems.

I am only dipping in and out of this thread so do not expect replies from me.

its mainly these folk who wrecked Corbyns leadership by creating myths about him and feeding them to the right wing press

Can you actually give us examples of this happening?

I see this accusation constantly thrown, but I have never once heard any specifics examples. Just vague lefty fluff

It just seems to be yet another example of the paranoid, bunker mentality of the tinfoil-hat conspiracy-theorists (the Jews are running the world/America is the root of all global problems) that is so representative of those around grandad.

Seems to me that its always been a handy scapegoat/excuse for the abject failure of the Corbyn project. Nothing could possibly be their fault, after all?

You’ve only got to see Boris Johnson’s popularity going up in the last few weeks

We are in the middle of a crisis, what you are seeing with Boris and other leaders around the World who are equally incompetent, is the masses hoping, clinging on to someone, anyone who is going to tell them its going to be ok, even if they know they are being lied to, which has become the norm recently.

Churchill was obviously popular during WW2, but once the end was in sight, the population started looking beyond it, who stood for what in this World after War, and thus he was voted out at the next election. The current Pm's popularity will plummet as well, particularly when a retrospective look is taken over his governments handling of this crisis.

After this is over, there will be people looking at how years of austerity have hollowed out the state, the lack of resilience in everything, how money was suddenly available to save the economy(and ultimately the ideological pursuits of neo-liberalism, socialise the losses and all that) and how quick certain people and organisations were quick to sack people, this is where Labour should now be aiming.

I'm sure some will now say that's what the party was doing under Corbyn, they probably were, but they had the wrong package, as mentioned above about personality, its needed.

To win against the right wing press etc, you need a leader, a party that is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Absolutely spot-on that el-bent

Labour should already be setting out a bold vision for post-virus, post-austerity Britain. If anything positive is to come of this, it should be the chance to dispense with the neo-liberal consensus and build a fairer society.

Surely this is labours moment? You'd think.

Unfortunately they still have that useless lame duck and his cabal clinging on, who were never remotely capable of articulating a vision of anything.

He should be long gone! They all should! And once he's gone, he should STFU and accept he is, and always was, a hinderence to the party.

He won't, of course. He's already made it clear he intends to carry on with his valuable services to the Tory party

It just seems to be yet another example of the paranoid, bunker mentality of the tinfoil-hat conspiracy-theorists

FFS man give it a rest. I confidently predict in 6 months time when Starmer has proven his doubters correct by being the cautious technocrat that he is you'll still be banging on about bunkers and 6th formers. Or more likely you'll be having a go at him because he's part of the liberal metropolitan elite and out of touch with the decent hardworking pigeon fancying pie and chips brigade. One thing I know you won't be doing is giving Starmer any credit for whatever he does or says because the only thing you do on here is have a go at the labour party whoever it's led by.

In any case we don't need labour right now because we're already governed by Red Boris and his merry band of reluctant communists.

U OK HUN X

😀

Interesting times for Labour, no doubt. To be honest, they should have sorted this leadership farce 2 months ago, but at least we're nearing the end of it right now.

BoJo will see a drop in popularity. Although the 'leader in wartime' effect is helping him right now, the lockdown will have to go on longer than people expect and, on current tracking, may well have to be reimposed subsequently. There are already questions being asked about his government's competence to handle this, roll out testing etc; come the start of May when people are still locked inside, opinion will have turned.

And Labour need to be ready to be an actual opposition at that point - coherent, cogent and relevant in the real world.

Labour should already be setting out a bold vision for post-virus, post-austerity Britain.

Yeah, this? Ain't gonna happen until 2021 at least. Without testing on a scale that the British government simply hasn't shown itself capable of, 'post-virus' isn't until mid next year. And the economy will take even longer to bounce back - ironically, austerity will be the name of the game from 2022 onwards, as governments around the world seek to bring down their debt.

U OK HUN X

Of course! It's a massively welcome distraction from coronavirus horrors 🙂

In all seriousness though, I don't really know what the labour party should be doing right now. They've done exactly the right thing with their response to the virus and their constructively critical support of the govt. Beyond that who knows? My main question of Starmer is whether he has the political skill and courage to nail the tories to the wall over their incompetent, negligent and cavalier response to the pandemic. I have my doubts but we'll see.

God only knows what will emerge from all this

Possibly not my liver, at this rate. Hope you're all ok over t'other side of the hills Daz.

You'd hope that the labour party will have spent this crazy 3 month limbo (WTF was this timescale necccessary?!) to hit the ground running as a proper opposition again. The country has never needed it more. Now isn't the time for confrontational politics, but when this is over there are going to be some very serious questions asked about how the government conducted themselves. And right now Boris Johnson doesn't look like he'll have satisfactory answers.

Binners - you only had to read the papers to see supposed labour bigwigs briefing against Corbyn

Seems to me that its always been a handy scapegoat/excuse for the abject failure of the Corbyn project. Nothing could possibly be their fault, after all?

Equally, it seems to me that Corbyn's critics have yet to learn the lessons of why he won two leadership elections. Top tip: it wasn't about him.

Any cursory study of the results show that his support ran far deeper and wider than Momentum, yet we're told that the route to success is a return to centrism that was decisively rejected by the overwhelming majority of voters at the last two general elections.

U OK HUN X

😀

This reads as sexism, on top of the ageism above. Can you not make your point without resorting to these types of remark?

Any cursory study of the results show that his support ran far deeper and wider than Momentum

Who is the most popular leader of the Tory party with its current membership, after Thatcher? Ian Duncan Smith.

Binners – you only had to read the papers to see supposed labour bigwigs briefing against Corbyn

I do. Every day. Like I said... specific examples please?

This reads as sexism, on top of the ageism above. Can you not make your point without resorting to these types of remark?

I think you'll find that its actualy Dazzism. And he knows I love him 😀

I think you’ll find that its actualy Dazzism. And he knows I love him 😀

I understand it’s meant that way, but it does not read that way.

Equally, it seems to me that Corbyn’s critics have yet to learn the lessons of why he won two leadership elections. Top tip: it wasn’t about him.

Corbyn and McDonnell will come out of the pandemic largely vindicated. The centrists are as stuffed as the tories are right now because the policies they said weren't possible are now the only thing preventing a total economic collapse. I reckon politics will be turned on it's head from now where the arguments will be about how far left we go, not how far right.

I understand it’s meant that way, but it does not read that way.

Interesting fact for you: I've been riding with Daz for years*. Every ride, by law, finishes at the pub (hey... I don't majke the rules!). In all those years, over the hundreds of pints we've swilled, and all the total bollocks we've talked, neither of us has ever once spoken about politics.

Thats what this place is for 😀

* God only knows how many hours that poor bloke has spent at the top of hills, waiting for me

The ultimate joke.
A Labour Party with a titled leader.
Why not just call themselves Tory-Lite?

A lot of labour party leaders receive peerages on retirement. I think Michael Foot turned his down, but Neil Kinnock, Harold Wilson and Clement Attlee all had titles (as does David Steel and Paddy Ashdown)

Keir Starmer has just got one earlier, and for doing something other than being a politician.

Who is the most popular leader of the Tory party with its current membership, after Thatcher? Ian Duncan Smith.

Labour has a vastly larger and more diverse membership, with a completely different leadership election process. Apples and oranges.

Corbyn and McDonnell will come out of the pandemic largely vindicated. The centrists are as stuffed as the tories are right now because the policies they said weren’t possible are now the only thing preventing a total economic collapse.

Even without the pandemic - the 'market' generally was pretty screwed; in that it had reached a tipping point. There was also going to have to be massive state intervention at some point - everyone who thought otherwise has not been paying attention.

The pandemic has highlighted the Dominic short-Cummings of only looking after profit at the expense of society at large.

We have to get away from the idea that taxes pay for stuff. They absolutely don't - they are a means to control inflation, destroy money in circulation - and we are far from short of government money. Sunak was up to receive a Golden Globe for his performance in which super-centrists like James O'Brien were prematurely excited - when the reality is they were going to be pretty awkward about the public getting hold of the money.

The money is available - it's just the Tories are saddled with the ideology that the government finances are like a house-hold budget. But then so is the majority of the population.

Binners stop attempting to rewrite history- from the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/07/former-labour-mp-ian-austin-urges-voters-back-boris-johnson

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/14/labour-mp-jess-phillips-knife-corbyn-vote-loser-general-election

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/20/jeremy-corbyns-honeymoon-period-will-last-until-local-elections

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/29/mps-tell-jeremy-corbyn-get-grip-or-lose-election-antisemitism

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/08/secret-recording-neil-kinnock-jeremy-corbyn-step-down-speech-to-mps-in-full
etc etc etc for pages and pages

Corbyn and McDonnell will come out of the pandemic largely vindicated. The centrists are as stuffed as the tories are right now because the policies they said weren’t possible are now the only thing preventing a total economic collapse.

Is everyone else in the Labour Party a centrist?

Time to retire that trope, it’s as dull as the Red Tory one.

What governments of all colours do during times like these often looks like the state stepping up to the plate and using centralisation and big government borrowing to get through the worse of it… (and it is)… but these policies aren’t the reserve of two nice old men who were great backbench MPs, but turned out to be poor leaders, bless them. That Gordon Brown fellow would, and does, approve of that kind of thing in response to events. And that Darling man. Does Blair? I’d be surprised if he didn’t.

Interesting fact for you: I’ve been riding with Daz for years*. Every ride, by law, finishes at the pub (hey… I don’t majke the rules!). In all those years, over the hundreds of pints we’ve swilled, and all the total bollocks we’ve talked, neither of us has ever once spoken about politics.

And you don't think a real chat would reconcile some of the debate?

Because on here - nothing is ever moved forward.

somewhat slightly dazed
A lot of labour party leaders receive peerages on retirement. I think Michael Foot turned his down, but Neil Kinnock, Harold Wilson and Clement Attlee all had titles (as does David Steel and Paddy Ashdown)

Yes, it's sad commentary. I think the Establishment calls the process 'duchessing'.

And you don’t think a real chat would reconcile some of the debate?

What the hell would we want to do that for? 😀

Best avoided.

In all those years, over the hundreds of pints we’ve swilled, and all the total bollocks we’ve talked, neither of us has ever once spoken about politics.

It's true. It's never even crossed my mind to talk about politics with Binners in real life 🙂

In fact I rarely speak about politics in real life with anyone, because if I do I have to caveat everything with common sense. I like my student left anarchist bubble.

And you don’t think a real chat would reconcile some of the debate?

What!? And spoil all the fun?

As this thread touches on BJ & the virus (no not Cummings), I wonder if he's using the "self isolating" excuse to be away from the daily briefing, facing awkward questions and being found wanting?

I wonder if he’s using the “self isolating” excuse to be away from the daily briefing, facing awkward questions and being found wanting?

I’m concerned that he is far more ill than we are being made aware of ( probably the wrong thread for this, sorry).

A good article touching on just that by John Crace in the Guardian

A Govester briefing is proof we're scraping the trustworthiness barrel

They're getting away with this lack of scrutiny because they've had the good luck to have no functioning oposition to hold them to account since before this actually hit. The sooner the labour party gets its thumb out from up its arse with this never-ending leadership election, the better.

This should all have been done and dusted while Coronavirus was something that was still confined to a province in China. Its absolutely ludicrous that the process is still dragging on

Govester?

Try…

LIZ TRUSST SPEAKS TO THE NATION …

And you don’t think a real chat would reconcile some of the debate?

What!? And spoil all the fun?

Exactly! The days are long enough at the moment. You're not taking this away from me.

They’re getting away with this lack of scrutiny because they’ve had the good luck to have no functioning oposition to hold them to account since before this actually hit.

You’ve made comments like this before now. I’m not saying you’re wrong, and I have a terrible memory, but I cannot remember when any opposition party held the government to account - they have little means to do so.
I guess there was a time, before New Labour’s election win in 1997 when Tony Blair’s opposition did hold the government to account, but I would argue that was due to the media and those with power having lost faith in the Tory government of the time. And, New Labour offering little to threaten the status quo.

And, New Labour offering little to threaten the status quo.

The minimum wage was evil, and would result in millions more people becoming unemployed. That’s what they said. And massive increases in spending on the NHS would just be wasted and would bankrupt the country.

I never voted for Labour under Blair, but that Labour opposition was a long way from the Tories of even those days, never mind this lot.